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World J Clin Cases. Jul 6, 2023; 11(19): 4498-4503
Published online Jul 6, 2023. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v11.i19.4498
Inequity in the global distribution of monkeypox vaccines
Marcos Roberto Tovani-Palone, Neel Doshi, Paolo Pedersini
Marcos Roberto Tovani-Palone, Department of Research Analytics, Saveetha Dental College and Hospitals, Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences, Chennai 600077, India
Neel Doshi, Department of Medicine, Pravara Institute of Medical Sciences, Ahmednagar 413736, India
Paolo Pedersini, IRCCS Fondazione Don Carlo Gnocchi, Milan 20148, Italy
Author contributions: Tovani-Palone MR contributed to study conception and design, writing of the original draft, and critical review and editing of the final paper; Doshi N contributed to the writing of the manuscript; Pedersini P contributed to the writing of the manuscript and critical review.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Marcos Roberto Tovani-Palone, PhD, Academic Research, Department of Research Analytics, Saveetha Dental College and Hospitals, Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences, 162 Poonamallee High Road, Velappanchavadi, Chennai 600077, India. marcos_palone@hotmail.com
Received: December 28, 2022
Peer-review started: December 28, 2022
First decision: March 28, 2023
Revised: April 26, 2023
Accepted: May 15, 2023
Article in press: May 15, 2023
Published online: July 6, 2023
Processing time: 184 Days and 8.7 Hours
Abstract

Monkeypox (mpox) has been a public health emergency of international concern that emerged in mid-2022 and has spread to 110 countries. The clinical findings of the disease vary according to the seriousness of the cases. Although its case fatality risk has not been high, a significant percentage of patients require hospitalization. In this context, local initiatives were taken to extend the limited supply of vaccines against the disease; however, such measures have not been sufficient to contain the spread of cases and ensure an equitable distribution of health resources. As a result, endemic regions of low-income countries continue to have insufficient access to mpox vaccination. Despite this and considering the global scope of the disease, there is still little discussion in the literature about the difficulties in achieving adequate vaccination coverage rates for the target population of interest. In this article, we briefly discussed general aspects of the disease, including its surveillance, the current global context of challenges for mpox vaccination, and issues on global allocation of health resources as well as proposed related recommendations.

Keywords: Monkeypox; Smallpox vaccine; Health inequities; Vaccination coverage; Vaccination hesitancy; Healthcare financing

Core Tip: The development and implementation of new global public health policies, to ensure greater equity in global health financing in the short term, may lead to positive impacts in the global distribution of monkeypox vaccines. This would provide safer and more appropriate management of both this outbreak and future pandemics.